Prevalence of Diabetes in U.S. Youth Set to Rise Considerably

(HealthDay News) — Projected estimates suggest considerable increases in the prevalence of type 1 and 2 diabetes among youth by 2050, according to research published in the December issue of Diabetes Care.

Giuseppina Imperatore, MD., Ph.D., from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues used a Markov modeling framework to generate yearly forecasts of the number of individuals younger than 20 years with and without diabetes through 2050. Based on the 2001 prevalence and 2002 incidence, two scenarios were considered for type 1 and 2 diabetes incidence: a constant incidence over time and an increased incidence (varying increase with age for type 1 diabetes and a constant 2.3 percent increase across all ages for type 2 diabetes).

Under scenario 1, the researchers projected that the number of youth with type 1 diabetes would increase from 166,018 in 2010 to 203,382 in 2050. For type 2 diabetes, the increase would be from 20,203 to 30,111. Under scenario 2, there would be an increase in the number of youth with type 1 diabetes, from 179,388 in 2010 to 587,488 in 2050 (prevalence of 2.13 and 5.20 per 1,000 respectively). The largest increases would be in youth of minority racial and ethnic groups. For type 2 diabetes there would be an increase from 22,820 in 2010 to 84,131 in 2050, an increase in prevalence from 0.27 to 0.75 per 1,000.

“Our projections indicate a serious picture of the future national diabetes burden in youth,” the authors write. “Even if the incidence remains at 2002 levels, because of the population growth projected by the U.S. Census the future numbers of youth with diabetes is projected to increase.”